If We Weren't All Crazy We Would Go Insane

 Well, it's been a minute...

Or more precisely, almost two years?(!)

Not been up to much. The short version of events goes: my partner lost his job and I lost my mind. One week we were house hunting and planning our anniversary vacation, and the next week we were on a food budget again.

For a long while I couldn't face my tiny dollhouse kitchen, because I was supposed to be leaving it behind. For an even longer while I couldn't face this blog. We were so close to getting out - of the literal barrio and figurative trailer park. It still kind of hurts to revisit all that hope and happiness. *Cue Debbie Downer Music*

Look! A kitten!

 Image via Stock Free Photos

Anyway the upside is I have a couple of years' worth of recipes that need documenting, so I'm back, at least for a while. Coming soon: I attempt to conquer my lifelong inadequacy regarding Alfredo sauce.

---

From the actual MacBook

As you may have inferred from yesterday's post, there ain't much going on around here today. Certainly nothing that struck me as dying to be captured in a grainy BlackBerry photo. 

Instead here I'm stuck a-thinking. Mostly about these posts from Courtney's blog, which (unintentionally I'm sure) kind of shamed me.

No denying, I'm not very real in this-here webspace. I didn't start it for that purpose, which I cling to as an excuse I guess. I took to the blogging for two reasons (for washed up limited preppers never die).

1. I wanted to overwrite an unsatisfactory online "self" as a part of my job search.
2. I was getting a lot of "Oh I wish I could cook" [insert peasant dish here] and thinking, "Dude. If I can, freakin anybody can."

Once this semester got serious, the cooking pretty much dried up. And with it, blogging material. Not to mention the feeling that, when I had time to myself, the last place I wanted to hang out was in front of the computer. Which explains why photoblogging from my phone has become the norm around here.

But back to the point, which is my lack of realness. I could log on and bitch. Lord knows I've got material.

For one? Too. Many. Students.

And too many mandatory faculty obligations.

Backaches that have come back at their worst in 5+ years.

The parade of ailments (two colds and an eye infection, if you want to keep score).

Weird, unsettling dreams.

A gnawing sense that building a respectable speech team -- in a place where folks don't even know the basic vocabulary -- is Mission Effing Impossible.

Piles, literal PILES of dust on just about every surface I see.

Paralyzing terror when I think about adding PhD classes to this already overflowing plate.

And missing cooking. I mean for real. The sharp-knife-through-vegetables catharsis that probably saved my life in 2009, the daily sense of accomplishment... I miss it! Never mind all the piles of delicious, homemade, from-scratch food.

None of which is to say I'm miserable, or even all that unhappy. I have my down days. Which, who the hell doesn't, right? My life ain't never been shiny...

For now though, it's surprisingly happy.

Shredded

That's me right now y'all.

Shredded.

Like Cameron when he doesn't want to get out of bed in Ferris Bueller.

I'm going to try to interweave my tale of woe into a recipe.

Or, I was, until Doug just shut off the video game and decided to call it a night.

Suffice it to say, this having a job thing is kicking my ass. It doesn't help that I couldn't log into my course website until the second week of class. I'm so far behind I'm about to get lapped, and my 170 students (OMFG) are kinda getting shafted.

My husband is kinda getting shafted.

My diet is TOTALLY getting shafted.

Enough already. Bedtime.

---

I am computerless

Call it the perfect example of how the universe likes to test me. Early this morning I was online, reading the news, peachy as pie. When I got home from campus this evening, nothing. It powers up but displays nada. Not even on an external monitor.

Now... Get this... My warranty expired... THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY. I shit you not.

There are bright sides. Like how I procrastinated buying the new battery I've needed since April, at least. Like how I put off upgrading my OS & Office software. Like how we just got the Airport to work with Doug's laptop on Sunday.

So, I don't even know what this post will look like. Hopefully Blogger will cleverly interpret the html I've punched in here. If not I humbly apologize for the eyeball-assaulting block of text with pointless tags crammed in.

Oh yeah, and, Casey was soooo right about the other day's chili recipe. It was short on beans. Thanks for calling me out, bitch. I was gonna write up some variations today, but for now I'm getting carpal tunnel from Blackberry typing. Stay tuned...

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

The straight dirt

First I wanted to post this picture of my farmer's market haul from Saturday. It is so nice to have fresh fruits and veggies again!

And homemade bread, mmmm...

But I really opened this page today to respond to Sarah's question on her blog: How do you stay zen about cleaning your house?

As I said in her comments, I don't recommend this strategy. I got over my cleaning crazy when my back went out in 2004. Four paragraphs later, I decided it was more polite to move my raving here.

My junior year of college I had the dubious honor of residing in the party house. Are you picturing stacks of beer cans, sticky floors, and all around chaos? Not my pad. For I had the cleanest party house in history. Every day when I came home from class I fastidiously erased all evidence of the previous night's festivities. You could trash the place, but it never stayed trashy.

Compare that to now. I can't turn around without seeing dust or clutter. My bathtub is long overdue for a scrubbing. My newly longer hair is freaking EVERYWHERE. Dishes routinely sit in the sink...

What changed? Well like I said I hurt my back. For about six months I could barely walk to the bathroom, let alone get on bended knee and scrub it til it gleamed. And you know what? My friends didn't quit coming over, my husband didn't contract a horrific disease... Basically no dire consequences came to pass at all.

In the meantime I realized there were other things I'd rather be doing. Spending time with my husband. Writing my thesis. Talking with my family on the phone. Screwing around on the internet.

I don't know if I could have gone cold turkey. But now it's almost as if I don't recognize that person. I try not to let my place get outright disgusting. I tend to pick one gross spot every day and sort that out. Today, for instance, I desperately need to sweep my hairballs up from the bathroom floor. If it's a good back day, I might even mop in there.

Oh, there's a load of other stuff that needs doing. Organize a growing stack of work-related papers. Run the vacuum in our bedroom. Dust the entertainment center. Sweep and mop the kitchen. Will I accomplish any of that? Unlikely. Because, nowadays, even one load of dishes is enough to put me on an ice pack for half an hour.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still funny about some things. A spotless kitchen counter, because food-borne illness still freaks me the hell out. Hospital corners, because wrinkly sheets drive me batty when I try to sleep. Here's the thing about that though. I never make the bed until right before I get in it. I leave it wrecked all through the day. Ha!

I seem to have some feelings about this, no? And you can see why I decided it was better I should work them out here, and not take over an innocent comment stream. Come to think of it, I bet I could fill a whole 'nother post ranting about how patriarchy hijacked the hygiene hypothesis germ theory* to keep women down and domesticated.

Sarah... I hope this is helpful. And I wish you the best in beating the Proctor and Gamble conspiracy.

*Edited 12:47 p.m.: I realized in the shower that I had utterly misused "hygiene hypothesis." I was thinking about germ theory, which more or less went, hey doctors, if you wash your hands in between patients, you won't spread so many of their cooties.

The hygiene hypothesis says rather the opposite: that in Western societies, we're so darn clean we fail to prime our children's immune systems. It's meant to explain the prevalence of asthma and allergies in developed countries, when they're virtually unheard of elsewhere.

Oh, shower. How many "ah-ha" moments do I owe to your existence?

---

Someday this will be a funny story

Before I get started on the bitch-fest for today:

First I seriously owe my dad an apology. I was so busy feeling lame and sorry for myself I completely spaced on Father's Day. Worst. Daughter. Ever. I'm really sorry, Dad. Please forgive me and have a wonderful Day After Father's Day. I love and miss you. Give me a call sometime when you're not busy. (Not busy? Ha.)

Second I wanted to respond to something Casey wrote yesterday. He rightly observed that one paycheck (especially a teacher's salary, *cough*) does not a middle class family make. Indeed. What I meant to say was, adding a second income to our household will go a long way toward getting us off this paycheck-to-paycheck hamster wheel. Of course, that only refers to our financial situation. We'll always be broke folk at heart.

Now, I know I promised I'd write about the bright side today. And I actually did, in the wee hours of this morning when I couldn't sleep for nothing. Maybe I'll publish what I just deleted later. But I'd be lying to y'all if I pretended I'm better today.

I think I might have been, if not for the phone call I just fielded. See, Doug drives this shitty old Chevrolet to work every day. I'm not hating. I love shitty old cars. I feel unspeakable anxiety when I'm driving too nice of a ride. But shitty old cars do shitty old car things sometimes. Like, springing radiator leaks. Like our Chevrolet chose to spring at this perfectly obnoxious moment.

And, I love you Douglas, but why on earth did you think I would want to know this immediately? I was just laying back down to try and steal a couple more hours of peaceful sleep. Scratch that off the list now. Damn and blast. Sure I needed to know by this afternoon, since I'll be driving out to pick you up from work in the Toyota, but you could have given me a morning's worth of ignorant bliss. It's not like there's anything I can do right now.

I think strong and reassuring just went out the window.

For now the Chevrolet will have to cool its wheels (see what I did there?) in the parking garage at Doug's office. Maybe later this week we'll fill up some empty bottles -- gotta rescue those from the trash, gross -- with water and limp it back home. And maybe a month from now we'll have the money to get the thing looked at. That is, unless anybody knows a gearhead in Atlanta who will work for food.

Deep breaths, kid. Deeeeep breaths... We've dug out of worse holes than this.

Oh, but on one brighter note, my darling Richard: I only just now saw your last reply to me on Twitter. My answer? Of course, silly! I've considered you a pretend boyfriend for ages now. I thought you knew! That is, as long as you're cool with joining a harem. :)

See, there was a joke right there. Recovery starts with a single punch line. Maybe I'll try to get some  more sleep after all...

Edited at 12:15 to add: Here is the text I just got from my husband.

Think I found the problem w/ the car. Cracked hose near connection to motor. I cut the hose and reattached. Gonna bring it home this afternoon. I'll let y know if I need you.

I'm shaking my head in amazement. If he can see the hose? We might can fix the thing ourselves. I could so use a break like this just now.

---

I should have seen it coming

I told y'all shit was too good to be true. Of course, I was stupidly awaiting catastrophe. But no, ohhh no, that would be too easy for my life. Instead the last couple of weeks have brought a relentless stream of aggravation, frustration, and disappointment. Smacked in the face by a meteor? Ha! Try, pecked to death by chickens.

I've been griping on AKoP about my ongoing saga with contacts and glasses. Hopefully that gets worked out this next week.

We bought curtains last Sunday. It's been hotter than Satan's nutsack in here, thanks to the sun blazing in at all hours. And temperature-wise, they're a marked improvement. But I can't bear to look at them; they're soul-suckingly ugly. Gross khaki panels that turn mustardy yellow when the sun shines behind them. No sheers, no tie-backs, no pretty rods or valences. Maybe I've watched too much HGTV in my life, but dammit I believe in window treatments. Function and form. Instead I got these...

The worst part is, we waited for weeks until Doug was sure we had the cash. Then, yesterday happened.

I went out for my hair appointment against my better judgment. I'd been thinking I should wait until my glasses drama is sorted. I got there early and lost all track of time flipping through style books. Next thing you know this woman comes in and says she's Morgan's 2:00 client. Hold up. I'm Morgan's 1:30 client. What time is it? Ten to two. So after I wasted that gas and my time I still decided to re-schedule. I don't want him rushing me. Better I should wait.

Annoyed, I came home to see if Doug wanted something to eat. We decided on Chinese, called it in, and drove out to pick it up. Here's where I'm actually glad I bailed on Morgan. Our fucking checking account was overdrawn. Debit declined. I guess we didn't have the cash for those monstrous curtains after all.

Y'all have no idea how much this horrifies me. I got no damned idea how we got in the hole, but our savings is shot and Doug doesn't get paid until Friday. We don't have any credit cards. You heard me. I fear debt like normal people fear disease.

Confession: I am useless when it comes to money. Doug has handled all our finances ever since we've been together. And he's been awesome at it. We have never overdrawn a checking account before, and it's been 10 year since we paid a bill late. But something has come over him lately. Twice this year AT&T has texted me saying our bill was past due. And now this? For whatever reason his head is suddenly not in the game. He has no explanation. Up until yesterday he just got defensive and pissy when I tried to get him to talk about it.

But this checking account thing, I can't even be mad. It's no fun to be mad at someone when they're utterly pissed at themselves. Which is another way of saying, I wish I didn't have to be strong and reassuring with him right now. I'd like to just be angry and disappointed myself.

I don't know, maybe we've just gotten ahead of ourselves. Come my first paycheck in August, we will finally join the middle class. We've been fantasizing about a car, a king size bed, and new clothes for us both. I do okay when I can pretend we're in our mid-20's -- just out of college, just getting started. Right where we need to be if you see it like that. But we've endured a long hard slog to get ourselves educated and employed. Want to know a secret? We're well past our mid-20's.

I'm done now. I could go on but I won't. Anyone who read this far into this whine festival now deserves a break. Tomorrow I'll try to write up the bright side.

---